


and they lean upon their shields

by salamanderinspace



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Dark Fable, Extrospection, Force Nietzsche, Introspection, Monster Feelings, Non-Consensual Bondage, Other, POV First Person, POV Monster, Propaganda, Psychosis, Xeno, non-consentacles, shokushu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 02:14:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9153037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salamanderinspace/pseuds/salamanderinspace
Summary: The squid monster has feelings.





	

I am fonder of humid climates than sandy desert ones. However, as Saw Gerrera and his ilk have sheltered me in a sufficiently dark, damp corner of their underground lair on Jedha, I can hardly complain. I have never tried to leave. They bring food and playmates to tell me stories, which is more than I had before I met them. 

My basic needs are met, I think. That is, I am bloated with the lies of Gerrera's enemies.

Many people lie to themselves for comfort. They tell each other stories so often they come to believe them. They need this as a coping mechanism, to stay sane in the world. It is because I devour their stories that they go mad.

I must consume stories. Without the knowledge of others, I will perish. If a meal is unsuitable, yes, I might spit it out. But my hunger is overall non-negotiable. I am compelled. I feel remorse for the ones who are damaged, certainly; but this is my purpose. It is what I am made of and how I grow.

Most recently they brought me a rebel soldier. He was older and finely dressed; I brushed my thickest arm across his face, and found lines. Over his chest and his thighs I found silky fabric. I gripped him tightly, though he'd already been tied to his chair by the ones who keep me.

(They do generally have to tie them down. To keep them from running away.)

Even twice restrained this man was holding himself straight. He was proud. He was someone important before the Republic fell, or so he thought. I skimmed this thought from where it effervesced, high on the surface of his mind. I saw him at galas, in grand attire, trading poetry with the fairest denizens of the Senate. I saw him at tea with Governors and elites. I saw him shake hands and give speeches. I saw him climb into chariots and yachts on Sevarcos II, the sun and the wind in his hair.

(Bright! And dry. Ew. Gross.)

These memories were linked to others in his thoughts: some fresh, some old. I was reminded of the structure of a web. It was as if, each time this soldier faced an opponent in the Civil War--or the Clone Wars, in fact, as he fought in these as well--he pulled these precious memories of the Republic to the front of his mind. I saw him killing, where "For the Republic!" rose to his lips like a litany. He'd bound everything up together so he could believe that the war would renew times of old. Times of glory. This was a precious kind of story, because the details were true and only the casings are false. His mind was like a shellfish delicacy; I had to turn it around and around to eat the meat from out of the shell of truth.

I thought I might find something under the initial framework. Maybe he'd repressed a visit to the fields of some distant Agriworld, where he'd stumbled onto child-slaves picking that tea he sipped "for the Republic?" Alas, no such luck. When I ate all his lies, there was nothing left.

Before that, Gerrera had brought me a monk from the Kyber temper on Jedha. His mind, too, was bound up in one great lie. I had to dip my smallest, slickest fingers into his ears and lick around to loosen things.

At first there were images of his order, the Guardians of the Whills. They were giving tiny slivers of crystal to choice pilgrims. The price for this token was high. The rites required were many. People travelled from across the galaxy and brought tithes for the Guardians. They would swear themselves in indentured service to the temple for cycle upon cycle to purchase the precious Force-gems. Sometimes they would leave their children to be trained to become Guardians. I saw that this monk was one such person; I saw him struggling, at first, with his servitude, but learning to suppress the cough from breathing the kyber dust.

In his second year at the temple, they taught him to fight to protect the crystals from the undeserving. This is the story he told himself: that those who have not worked and suffered and sweated and breathed the crystals do not deserve them. I saw him murdering raiders with a quarterstaff. I saw him arranging with other Guardians to face Stormtroopers in a bloody standoff. He believed in Guarding the crystals. He would have died doing it.

I drank the lies from his mind and swallowed. I wound around his torso, stripped off the linen. I left him bare, shaking in horror. But he did not fear me. He feared the images swirling in his head, the residue I did not take. I do not drink truth but I peeked and saw it: the temple was built on a column of natural crystal. The Kyber was plentiful, nearly infinite. It ran down and down in a secret vein to the planet's core. The complex rites and the tiny slivers were all a charade. Every child in the galaxy could have had a crystal.

Before that, Gerrera brought me a schoolteacher. That was a different sort of meal. Her long black hair was thin and sticky like shadows. Her eyes were haunting, sunken and blue. I slithered across her breasts, feeling for her heartbeat. Her pulse was quick. I wish I could convey to you what it felt like--to hold that woman while she trembled at the sight of me.

They suspected her of seeding Imperial propaganda in the schoolroom. What I found was, to my mind, more disturbing. I saw her, late one night, under a setla-lamp, excising certain sections from her students' textbook. These were the slim parts of the book that carried any information whatsoever on non-humans (such as myself.) I saw her surf the holonet and download films about how dangerous we all are. Films where we attack, and are subsequently slaughtered for great justice. I saw children crying, seeing these films, and I saw her barking to make them write lines. 

She believed that the holy Force animated her. In fact, she believed all human beings to be vessels of its will, and so she had ceased to believe in herself as an organism like any other. She feared that acknowledging this would mean powerlessness--accepting her smallness in the universe and her inevitable erasure by death. 

She thought she was educating but again I found fear. She was terrified, craving control, so she controlled her students. She was aware of the conflict in her thinking; when I ate her lies, there was still a child in her, saying "I am here. I am alive. I am enough."

My favorite they ever brought me was an Imperial officer. Oh, he was fun. Young, lean, ambitious. I peeled his shirt from his body and found the indentation humans have in their midriffs. For some reason, of all his orifices, this was the one I enjoyed probing the most.

See, he'd come to defect. That's what he said out loud. He had a lovely voice, soft and smooth and clear. In his head, he told himself that he was this first rate spy. "Son," the admiral had said to him, "we need you to go down to Jedha. Infiltrate the extremists." He assured himself it was because he could get intel that no one else would. That he could speak and others would listen. He thought he had power. He thought the Empire would come for him. He knew they would come for him. 

They didn't come for him.

His lies were layered. The defection, the infiltration, the power: one shield after another to keep him from acceptance. Deep down he knew they'd been trying to get rid of him. Did I mention how young he was? And how ambitious?

I won't be coy - penetration is vital to the process of what I do. He made such sounds when I reached into him. Of course, he couldn't draw breath, as I'd already filled his mouth. I do think his mind survived the encounter. But not that voice, unfortunately. He stayed with the radicals to fight for the Cause but he's been mute ever since.

I've said he was my favorite. That isn't counting the One. I saved this for last, because that's how telling secrets works. The truest part always comes at the end.

This morning, Saw brought me the One who was different. An imperial pilot named Bodhi Rook. His mind was so clear, so full of truth! His eyes were wide and dark. I don't have an apparatus for entering people through their eyes, but I wish I did, because his were so beautiful.

As soon as I made contact, I saw a man in his mind. High cheekbones and a downturned mouth; a calculating gaze. The nights brought them together and they spoke of physics and the turning world. The pilot felt love for this man, this scientist, whose voice stuck in his mind like a bell tolling in the market in Jedha--ringing on and on and hanging forever. Fading, but indestructible.

I saw other things, too. I saw flight lessons--planets too large to be abstractions and too sharp to be forgotten. I saw an old woman with large, dark eyes cutting vegetables. Mostly, though, I saw this scientist, and his grim sorrow, and his schematics to break the future. I saw Bodhi's desire to go into this future, broken though it may be.

That is when I knew I'd been lied to. I loved this pilot more than all the others. His love for the people in his thoughts sustained him, and even as I touched it, I knew I could be so sustained. 

Gerrera! He told me that all creatures such as myself need to seek out and devour lies. It felt right so I never questioned it. All this time, I was doing his work for him.

But that's alright. What I thought was a compulsion is, in fact, just a desire. I accept this and move forward. There is nothing wrong with indulging desire.

However, to return to Bodhi, my pilot. He left my company in a daze and is being held nearby. Will I see him again? I hope so. I hope he thinks of me. Or if he doesn't, I hope he is well. I think he will be.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the Iliad. From Book 3, where Helen stands on the wall and describes all the warriors and their attributes.  
> Pretty sure canon name for the beastie (Bor Gullet) is also from the Iliad.


End file.
